Vex robotics is a worldwide robotics competition that is hosted all around the world. Each year, Vex Robotics introduces students to a new challenge. The 2019-2020 theme is Tower Takeover. The goal of Tower Takeover is to earn a higher score than the opposing alliance, by stacking cubes. Thirty-five different teams from California joined the competition held at McBride High School. Team 687B from CAMS, California Academy of Mathematics and Science, was one of these. Team 687B NERD HERD came in 7th place and qualified for the elimination round. However, 687B lost in the quarter finals. After the competition was over, I had the opportunity to interview Silas John, the captain of team 687B, and learned many things about the Vex Robotics project.
Shim – What thing about Vex entertains you?
John – I love how we have all this technology in Vex that is similar to real life equipment. It gives me great joy to be able to tinker and compete with it all.
Shim- Explain about the Vex community.
John – The vex community is very accepting and wants to help everyone succeed. In our school, team’s always help each other with any topic or material, and out of school we form bonds with teams we compete with!
Shim- What does Vex mean to you?
John – Vex is a way for me to get involved with robotics while giving back to my community through all of the outreach we do.
Shim- What is your goal in Vex?
John – My goal is to be able to bring up others in what they want to do, while being competitive enough to be a formidable challenge in any competition.
Shim- What are some skills your team needs to redeem in order to go to states?
John – Our team needs to have better communication and more dedication. The work done by our team is very lopsided right now and we need to change that if we are to go to state.
Shim- What is the robot your team built capable of doing?
John- Our robot is primarily a stacker ‘bot, which can reach all towers and stack 9 to 11 cubes based on positioning. We also have a passive anti-tilt, which ends up giving our robot a solid drive base with a 6 wheel drive
Through my interview with Silas I learned alot about what it means to be a team member competing in Vex Robotics competitions. It has not been stated what the topic will be for the next competition, but I am sure that many students will be eagerly awaiting whatever robotics challenges await them in the future.
Justin W. Shim, Grade 11,
California Academy of Mathematics and Science
